Does anyone else ever think about how traditional fiction is categorised by plot/setting (romance, crime, thriller, fantasy) but fanfiction is categorised by the emotions it’s meant to give you (hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, smut)?
Never thought of it this way, but that’s fascinatingly true.
To me, this is really telling of the world of fanfiction in general. Things like Romance, crime, thriller etc, are very broad and generic. You can have a romance that is incredibly dramatic, with lots of tears and heart wrenching moments, or you can have something simple, a beautiful tale of falling in love that never really hurts, but still brings tears to your eyes. Same with the rest, crime can be anything ala Castle to Se7en (I realize these are tv/movie but you get the gist) and Fantasy is ridiculously varied. All of the traditional genres are. But that’s just it. They are ALL VARIED. Because there are so many of them. Go to any grocery store and you have your pick of dozens of romances, fantasy books are a dime a dozen and even off the top of my head i can think of dozens of titles ranging in tone from the MYTH books to Game of Thrones.
But the thing is, those are already published, sold, signed sealed delivered someone is reading those.
Fanfiction, on the other hand, is not only written to get very specific stories told by the authors, but has to be marketed accordingly. As an author, when tagging my work, I try and look at it as if I was actually a reader. What are people going to be looking for when they find my fic, read it and say, ‘ah yes, this is what I wanted.’ And “romance” is too vague. The majority of the fics out there in the shipping world are technically romance of some kind. We have to get specific in what we are selling so people will buy it.
When I’m looking for a new fantasy book to read I usually have access to dozens if not hundreds of reviews and summaries giving me an idea of what I’m getting into. But with fanction, I’m going almost entirely off the authors word.
The author says it’s fluffy? I’m in. In the mood for some hurt/comfort? Simple tag filter on AO3, and I get exactly what I asked for – which is the entire point of fanfiction.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1ApJy1w